She and Him Were
by PellNell
Summary: Were you and him...?" Donna asks the question, and Rose must come to terms with her answer. Sad, angsty smut.


"Were you and him…

"Were you and him…?"

The longer the question hangs in the air, the more Rose begins to realize that her eyes must be clouding over now. Her tear ducts are beginning to contract in that curious way that signals water will soon be shimmying down her cheeks. Her face is already beginning to redden and it's stinging so from all that chilly night air that's seeped into this old military outpost. It's so shabbily taken care of that heat- for those men and women working hard on impossible scientific dreams, no less- appears to be nothing more than an afterthought. If she were at home now, perhaps trekking through a field with Mickey and Jake, she would have punctuated the silence by saying something infinitely clever like, "Fucking Leeds." Call her crazy, but working out there, for Torchwood, it just has always seemed more appropriate and just plain expected that she will swear. She was never usually the sort to fill her conversations with profanity, but Cardiff has hardened her. No, scratch that, being without him has hardened her.

She blinks, subtly enough that she hopes Donna hasn't noticed that painful bolt of electricity behind her carefully applied mascara and lipgloss, and leans forward to brush at the woman's shoulder. The creature makes a noise that Rose imagines comes from the clacking of its little teeth, and she tilts her head and sighs a little.

"D'you want to see it?" she asks. Donna's eyes have been searching Rose's face, trying to decipher those tiny, invisible lines, attempting to deconstruct just what those bags under her eyes mean in relation to the Doctor. The woman's lips had fallen open while she searched, but now they are back together as she meets Rose's gaze.

Rose is almost certain Donna refuses at once, but then relents less than a moment later. She couldn't swear to it in a court of law, but for the moment, it makes sense in her little head to lead Donna to the collection of mirrors, while she remains lost in her own world. It's a world reminiscent of someone's postcard collection, full of abstract images that have little bearing on the actual information present, the notes Rose has written and mailed to herself for safekeeping.

_Keep it together, Rose_, she thinks. _You've got enough to hide without worrying about silly questions. 'Sides, one swallow does not a summer make. Whatever that means._

--

She and him…they were…well, once. It hardly counted. So rushed and…and completely silly. And it seemed best not to bring it up again, or try…it again.

It was right before the sanctuary base, before she was quite certain with every fiber of her being that she had lost him, really lost him and that he had led her away from what she had surely believed to be his final moments. London, that's where it had happened, in 1953. The air crisp and clear, much better than the oxygen tainted with cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and that grimy, oily chips scent that she had grown so accustomed to inhaling on her way to the shops. She had been wearing those impossible tiny heels that "smart" women had been wearing for god knows how many years, and she remembered thinking, _why couldn't it have been saddle shoes?_ The Doctor had insisted she wear that silly huge pink thing out and about, blend in better, he said. She hadn't minded the skirt so much, really, it was all the flouncy layers underneath that had annoyed her, not to mention the stockings. But she had seen the way his eyes lit up, and that was all that mattered: the way she cleared her throat discreetly, his gaze travelling up from the Tardis controls so unassumingly, his eyes shining brightly as he examined her costume.

"My, my, Rose Tyler, I must say, I am real gone!" He had chuckled a bit at this interjection of what Rose had discovered later to be slang he must have picked up from a James Dean film.

She grinned. "Are you now?" She slipped on those lovely, ridiculous pink glasses and tilted her head lightly to the side.

"Oh, I am, I am. You better be careful some miscreant doesn't haul you off for some back seat bingo," he had added, shaking his head as he tweaked something on the console. She remembered now that he had glanced down at his work so quickly now, as if almost embarrassed by his own remark. There might have been a hint of a blush on his Time Lord cheeks, but it had passed by unnoticed in the moment. It wasn't until later, after all those crazy shenanigans involving televisions utilized by aliens, that he had reacted that same way, as if afraid to meet her gaze when he spoke.

They were back in the Tardis, her shoes by now were killing her feet, and she wanted nothing more than to change back into the usual jeans she'd bought at half-price. She remembered now thinking that she might just indulge herself by putting on that Milkfed t-shirt she had splurged on after her first paycheck. The Doctor, as he so often did, had other ideas though. He had, at first, leaned towards the controls, but then turned to Rose and said, very tenderly, "It's good to have you back."

His hands had reached out then and gently taken her face in them. She remembered the surprising softness of his fingertips as he stroked her cheek. "Well, you were there most of the time, but…it's good to have you back…all of you, I mean." His thumb had so gingerly come to rest on her lower lip as he said this, and she found herself filled with a specific kind of joy that came from more than simply being alive and in one piece. He turned away from her again, then, his eyes downcast and his brow furrowed.

"Doctor?" she had said, very quietly then. He looked back at her, his eyes searching her face in way Donna did too.

"Thank you," she added, leaning upward to give him a soft kiss on the cheek. It was perhaps a bit more than friendly, she thought, looking back now. She hadn't placed it on the apple of the cheek, no. Instead, she had let her lips come to rest on that spot between his cheekbones and the corner of his mouth. She could smell and almost taste the sweet, cinnamon scent of the celebration roll he'd eaten before they'd left.

And then, for whatever reason- she wasn't sure quite what had possessed her- she moved to press her lips firmly against the Doctor's own. It was impossibly brief, but she thought it had lasted just long enough for him to touch her waxy, cherry-flavored chapstick somewhere within his senses. She pulled away and looked at him, her eyes locked with those brown, very large orbs of his.

"Well," he stammered. "That was…er, that was…" She could see it was a struggle for him to get the words out before he finally decided against some kind of verbose exchange of gratitude and kissed her again.

Waves of shock radiated from her lips all the way down to her toes. It was a helpless, stunned sort of feeling, like a deer caught in the headlights of a very large truck on a dark night. The Doctor was kissing her. Yes, in fact, this was the Doctor. Kissing her. Not the other way around. And he was kissing her harder than she had kissed him, his lips pushed against hers cruelly before he parted them to allow his teeth to fix upon her lower lip. She felt her hands move up to his face of her own accord, and her mouth pressed feverishly against his for a moment before he stopped what he was doing.

"Er, thank you," she had said right away. She phrased it rather like a question, and then surprised even herself by immediately seeking out his lips again. He offered no complaints and had said nothing, actually, which was a first for him.

She wondered, as his lips opened and something- oh god, was that his tongue?!- slipped into her mouth, was this simply a sort of celebration? In the back of his mind, was the Doctor, in fact, thinking, _Oh, Rose is still here and her face doesn't look like a piece of putty. Let's have a snog!_ It made no logical sense. Of course, she fancied him immensely, so she could sort of understand her own actions, but here he was, kissing her like an eager, nervous schoolboy. The Doctor, for all his random outbursts and joyful declarations, was a very guarded individual, and Rose had never expected him to show any woman, much less her, quite this much affection.

His long, nimble fingers were entwined in her hair, pulling her headband off to fondle her carefully crafted up-do, as he kissed her so intimately and keenly. It had been a long time since anyone had run his fingers through her hair and gently moved his thumb over her ear, as he was doing now. He seemed quite excited about the ear, actually, as he caressed it, and Rose couldn't help wondering if ears were some kind of super-special Time Lord erogenous zone. Actually, come to think of it, she didn't think her ears had ever been touched quite so intensely before, and…wow, there was definitely some kind of electrical pulse tracing its way from her lobes, down her spine, down to...well, other places.

_Oh,_ she thought as that specific current found a nice little resting place between her legs. It was the only thing she could have thought, really, as she felt a surge of lightening down in that oft-ignored spot. It warmed her, made her feel alive, and left her a bit short of breath. She reached her hands up to run her fingers through his hair, which she found to be quite greasy and slicked back. Still, as the current continued its activity in her nether regions, her fingers convulsed a bit and she began to grasp at his locks.

All the while, he continued kissing her- kissing her!- and his mouth seemed feverish and hungry now, as he began to bite and suck on her bottom lip. It was different from anything Rose had become accustomed to with Jimmy or Mickey or any boy really, so forceful at times, but still undeniably Doctor-esque. The way he seemed to be tasting her, it was as though this was some kind of investigation of her lips, tongue, and teeth. He was probing around, excitedly, but still with enough restraint that she was certain he wanted to savor the experience. After all, who knew when this opportunity would present itself?

It was just this mindset that finally dared Rose to push her hands down to his shoulders and begin to push his jacket off. She slipped her fingers into the gap between his shirt and coat, slowly pressing against the jacket until it began to slither off him. She sucked in a deep breath- which he then took to mean he should be kissing her a bit more forcefully- and continued to pull it off him. She wasn't sure exactly what she was doing here. Well, no, she knew. She just couldn't believe that she was actually in the process of undressing the Doctor, as tentative as it was.

He seemed to take the hint, and began to unzip her dark coat as well, pushing her arms back just long enough to pull it off her. His eyes remained closed through all this, and his lips were apart from hers for only a moment. She could feel the cool sensation of his breath against her lips briefly before he returned to his scientific expedition into the dark corners of Rose Tyler's mouth. His hands hung in the air, hesitant, in front of her chest before he finally decided to place them on her shoulders and began massaging her neck with his fingertips.

She sucked in her own breath again, and removed her hands from his shoulders to take hold of his own fingers. Gingerly, she took them and softly pressed them against her breasts. The Doctor stopped kissing her for a minute, and bent down to make eye contact with her. Still, he said nothing, he just gazed into her doe-like, curious eyes with what she could only describe as fear. Rose offered him a small smile, one she knew would be filled with her own anticipation and insecurities. His hair had come loose and now hung in front of his eyes. She smiled a little broader, and a tiny grin slowly spread across his face. He closed his eyes and placed a little peck on her forehead before returning to her lips.

As he kissed her, she could feel his hands roaming over her breasts in a lively, if reserved, fashion. The electricity between her thighs surged again, and she moaned very softly. She was certain he could feel her nipples through the top. Indeed, he must've, as his thumbs began to make circular motions over her shirt. He was kissing her even harder now, so hard she thought he might be sucking out her very soul through her mouth. Rose's fingers seemed to spasm on their own, and they were filled with the very frenzied need to undo the buttons on the Doctor's shirt. She felt herself ripping at the buttons then, certain they couldn't be undone fast enough. Her only thought was that she needed to press her fingertips to his skin, to feel some naked patch of flesh against her fleeting, searching hands.

One button in particular refused to budge, and she stood there, fiddling with it in vain for a few minutes. The Doctor broke the kiss and chuckled a bit in a way that made his eyelashes flutter. He moved his hands to the shirt and nimbly slipped the button out.

"That one's a bit tricky," he commented, and began to undo the rest of the shirt himself. Rose stood there, unsure of what to do before deciding to unbutton her own shirt. He looked up at her, deep into her face, and with more intensity than she thought anyone had ever looked at her before. His eyes were shining, his brow furrowed just a bit, and she could even now sense the buried sadness within him.

"Rose," he whispered, taking hold of her hands. It was a question, she knew. In saying her name, he implied many different inquiries. Was she taking her top off for his benefit, or was she merely warm? What about his shirt, was that because she had a desire to see him without it, or was she checking for a rash? And, most of all, was she sure of this?

Rose breathed in softly and said, "Doctor." She slipped her hands out of his and wrapped them around his neck tenderly.

That was all the encouragement he needed, and he swept his arms down to her waist. He wrapped one hand over her bottom, and lifted her up to sit her down on the Tardis console. Rose was certain this wasn't a good idea; they could end up god knows where. He didn't seem to mind though, and placed a hand between her legs. His eyes were downcast, unable to meet hers, as he pressed his fingers against her. Through her knickers, she could feel a finger ghosting over her clit, something she hadn't even dared to do herself in a long while. She shivered and leaned forward to kiss him, but instead fixated on his cheek and bit down on it. She bent towards him ever so slightly, and reached a hand down to the unassuming bulge in his pants. She traced a finger over his zipper very lightly, and his entire body went stiff for a moment. His hand was still reaching between her legs, teasing her with the soft, almost non-existent way he was stroking her.

"You're so warm," the Doctor whispered in her ear, and he placed his entire palm against her then. She leaned herself into his hand, brushing against it a bit harder. She groaned, louder now.

And that was that. He pulled away from her for an instant, and she was almost certain he was going to stop altogether. He seemed to be mulling things over for a moment, before bending down on his knees. The Doctor ran his hands up and over her thighs, staring intently at them, before looking up at her with a large grin on his face.

"Oh, stockings too?" he asked mischievously. Rose couldn't help throwing her head back to laugh.

"You know they didn't sell these kind until the 1960s?" The Doctor asked her sincerely.

"Well, then s'a good thing no one asked me about my stockings," Rose replied cheekily. "Now, Doctor…"

He had, by this point, begun the lovely process of kissing the inside of her thighs, but he graciously looked up at her, only his eyes visible above the skirt. "Yes?"

"Shut up," she says, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. The Doctor, this amazingly gorgeous and smart and ridiculous Time Lord, had his face right between her thighs, and here he was talking about the history of nylons. He winked at her then, and went back to teasing her as he slowly ran his lips and teeth over her thighs. She ran her fingers through his hair while his hands reached out to take hold of her knickers. She would have probably been worried about the fact that these were the most unsexy panties she owned, large things with, yes, rainbows on them, but all she could think of at the moment was the feeling of the Doctor's breath against her.

The Doctor yanked her knickers quickly down her legs, briefly running into the challenge of getting them over her ridiculously large pink heels, before focusing his attention again to that lovely, wet spot between her thighs. Rose felt her eyes rolling into the back of her head as he moved even closer to her. Ah, so all that random licking was good for something… Rose moaned loudly, and grasped the Doctor's hair. She was being explored, invaded, captured- oh, there weren't enough words for it. The sensation was a creeping tendril wrapping itself around her, it was chemical reactions in her brain, but mostly it was a deep swelling within her that made her forget everything else in the universe.

She ran her fingers along the side of his face. "Oh, Doctor," she gasped.

He lifted his eyes briefly. "Yes?"

Rose found herself unable to form coherent words. It was as if suddenly the gravity of the situation had hit her, and she was fumbling for something to say as her cheeks grew redder and redder. "Um, well…did you…I mean…s'nice, s'really nice, but I'd like you to…er…"

The Doctor seemed to understand her, miraculously. "Oh, right." He stood up and reached a hand down to the zipper of his pants. Rose had to look away. It didn't seem proper for her to be staring at him while he unzipped, as if it was too personal an act for her to be privy to. He had leaned towards her then, kissed her lips so very softly, and taken her hand to place against himself. She had bit her lip then and shyly swept her fingers against his length. Rose wasn't quite brave enough yet to grab hold of him the way she imagined a bold woman would. Instead, she slowly stroked him from the base to the tip, which was just slippery enough for her to feel on her fingertips. She glanced up at the Doctor and tried to read his face. His eyes were closed and his lips were parted, the barest shadow of his teeth was visible. She watched his expression as she reached lower to gently cup his balls the way one might handle a baby bird. He let out a little gasp and moaned a little as she wrapped her fingers around him loosely.

"Rose," he groaned. She let go immediately.

"Did I...did I do something wrong?"

The Doctor smiled and shook his head. "No, no, quite the opposite, in fact." He brought his face to hers and kissed her deeply again. His lips bit her lower lip and she began to realize that this, and that strange ear-touching thing, were two of his most apparent sexual quirks. Ones that she could live with, in fact.

He leaned pressed himself against her now, her legs parted enough to allow him to brush against her and it sent shivers up her spine. He looked downwards and she gasped as he pushed into her. Rose found herself unable to speak or make any sounds as she sat there, just trying to accept the fact that he- the Doctor- was now very much having sex with her. His hands gripped her arse very tightly as he began to thrust into her, and she started to whimper almost immediately. That surge of electricity was mounting within her, and she could hear her breathing becoming erratic. It wasn't so much that the Doctor was exceptionally large because he wasn't, or that he had been using some ridiculous move from the Gallifrey version of the Kama Sutra, because he wasn't. Rose had come to terms with the fact afterwards that the simple truth was that the Doctor had some understanding of what he was doing in bed, or on console, as it were, and also that it had never been a challenge to make her come.

Rose grabbed at the Doctor's hair as he continued to grind into her. He'd developed some kind of rhythm quickly, thrusting hard and quickly and then slowed down to move in and out of her. It was torture, as Rose felt the waves of pleasure moving through her. They made her toes curl and her breath catch in the back of her throat.

"Doctor," she moaned slowly as he slipped out of her to kiss her neck and run his fingers back and forth over her clit. She felt her lips fall open and she groaned deeply as she dug her fingernails into his shoulders. "Oh, Doctor, please…"

He didn't respond, only looked down, and it became clear to Rose that he was afraid to make eye contact in the middle of something so intimate and so ridiculous. Instead, he held her tighter and pulled her to him, penetrating her deeper than he had before.

She didn't have time to say or shout anything but, "oh!" She felt herself spasming around him, and there was that familiar warmness that was now radiating throughout her being, reverberating between her legs as she came quickly.

The way she'd clamped around him so suddenly had clearly had its affect on the Doctor, and he gave three more quick thrusts before she felt him spilling into her. He moaned loudly once and she saw his whole body go slack as he bent over her and the console. Rose breathed deeply, and reached up to wipe his hair from his eyes. He looked up at her and smiled contentedly. He leaned towards her ear and sighed, "Rose Tyler, my little bad wolf."

Rose had laughed at that, and he had chuckled too, and it seemed they had both been aware of the absurdity of that moment: him, calling her a ridiculous name she hadn't thought of in ages, the two of them cackling like hyenas, with the Doctor still inside her.

He had stopped laughing first, and while she sat there giggling, he had run his thumb over her lips again. He looked into her eyes, and she could see the worry hidden behind them. She had found this to be the opportune moment to extract herself. She sighed and looked at him in a manner that said, _S'time for us to move along_.

"Er, yes…good to have you back, Rose," the Doctor stammered. He pulled himself away from her and discreetly zipped his pants up, while looking around for his jacket.

"Good to be back," Rose replied cheerily, while wanting to bang her head repeatedly on the Tardis console. She imagined he was probably thinking the same thing. She slipped down to the floor and collected her underwear and coat and hoped he didn't realize she was avoiding eye contact now.

She could hear him shuffling about nervously. "I've…ah, got some reading to do. Best be prepared for anything that comes our way. Never know when some space bees might decide the Tardis is a flower."

Rose silently chastised herself, but replied just as apprehensively. "Right. I should get some sleep, what with all the excitement." She choked on her own tongue then, and quickly added, "The, er, alien television set and jelloid face sort of excitement, I mean."

She turned to face the Doctor, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. "G'night." She offered him a slight wave and then turned around to head back to her room.

"Wait." Rose stopped in her tracks and turned back to the Doctor, her heart beating out of her chest now.

He had been smiling, the smile she was accustomed to, without anything tainting the grin on his face. The Doctor took hold of her free hand and stepped forward before giving her a sweet, simple kiss on her now sore lips. He had reassured her then, with the smile, the hand holding, and most of all, that lovely kiss.

"Sleep tight," he offered.

"Yeah, I will," she replied, smiling.

Before that moment, she had been absolutely sure that it had all been some horrible fluke they would pretend had never happened. Things had seemed much better though, after they said goodnight.

They had meandered their way through the universe again, had experienced all the distress that came from being stuck on a planet where something resembling the actual devil had been imprisoned, and had lost and found one another again. Rose had been so certain after that particular adventure that they'd be having some lovely "we're not dead" sex. Especially after they'd left Ida and he'd given her a quick swat on the arse.

"Time for bed, Rose," he had said, smirking.

"Coming with me?" Rose had tried to make this sound as unsuspecting as possible.

"Of course. Someone's got to make sure you floss and brush."

He had yawned and babbled about the books on her nightstand while she dressed for bed, with particular attention paid to her copy of Tipping the Velvet. She could recall now that he'd at first been pleased- "Lovely book. I cried about three times."- before giving her an odd look and asked, "Now, a cheeky bastard like myself or Jack reading this, that makes sense. Never would've picked you for the Sapphic type though, Miss Tyler."

"Dream on, Doctor," she had replied sardonically. Of course, she had hoped this might lead into some canoodling on the bed, and as she stepped into the bathroom, she had called to mind images of his body against hers, holding her tight. Unfortunately, this was all the foreplay she was to get, as she stood in the bathroom brushing her teeth.

Once back in the bedroom though, she'd found the Doctor sprawled out asleep on her bed, his chest rising and falling so easily. She had sighed in disappointment then, but pulled close to him anyway and linked hands with him before drifting off to sleep herself.

--

That had been the end of things then, she now realized. Sure, they could always stop for a quickie or an intense bout of love-making, but that didn't seem to be the Doctor's style, and he'd seemed engrossed in a group called LINDA so soon after they'd recovered from the trial that had been the impossible planet. And before she'd known what was happening, here had come the Cybermen and Daleks to invade London again, and there she went, so cruelly yanked away from him.

_It was over before it started,_ she thinks to herself as she shows Donna where to stand, right in the middle of that garish thing UNIT's calling a time machine. She looks into Donna's eyes now, sees that they are so full of fear and trepidation, not unlike Rose's own eyes so long ago.

"You asked…about me and him," she says very softly, as she pushes Donna's hair behind her ear.

"Yes," Donna responds quickly. She is searching Rose's face again, and she quickly settles on her eyes where Rose knows she has found her answer.

Rose responds anyway. "No, we weren't." She bites her lip to stop her eyes from doing that queer thing they do so often, and she offers Donna a smile. "Let's have a look at that thing now, yeah?"


End file.
